One of the most important societal changes of recent times has been the emergence of the Internet, more particularly, the World Wide Web (e.g., the Web), as a predominant communications medium. The Web presents a navigable aggregation of Web page content of all the Web connected computers. This navigable aggregation of content is linked in such a way as to offer users access to information and documentation, typically in the form of interactive hypermedia, or Web pages. Web pages describe documents in which hypertext links are used for connecting a multitude of combinations of graphics, audio, video, and text. Such combinations are often interlinked and interconnected in nonlinear, nonsequential manners.
Web page authors use specialized software, for example, HTML (hypertext markup language), Java, XML (extensible markup language), and the like, to create Web pages and to format the various hyperlinks, objects, fields, etc., within the Web pages. Web page authors also use a variety of tools to track the structure of the links between the many Web pages that comprise the Web site. The ability to define the interaction of many different Web pages with one another through the use of the hyperlinks enable the creation of powerful comprehensive Web sites directed towards particular needs or particular purposes. Examples include news portal Web sites, sports oriented Web sites, and particularly, electronic commerce oriented Web sites. The creation and updating of such large Web sites, having many hundreds of complex interlinked, interrelated Web pages, has become a very technical and manpower intensive undertaking.
The most basic component of Web page creation is the HTML editor. An HTML editor is a low-level Web site authoring tool that is essentially a text editor, specialized for writing HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code. It assists the HTML author (e.g., the Web page author or Web site designer) by cataloging all HTML tags and common structures in menus and by being able to catch certain syntax errors. It often displays tags and contents in colors so they pop out for easy reference. HTML editors comprise the foundation of many different prior art Web authoring software tools. Web authoring software (e.g., often synonymous with Web development software) generates the required HTML code for the pages. Trained developers work with the HTML editors and the Web authoring software to produce the many Web pages of the Web site. Within a given Web site, collections of related Web pages are usually linked together using hypertext links, or hyperlinks. The basic structure of hyperlinked Web pages is designed to promote the process of browsing from one document to another along hypertext links. A significant amount of effort is expended to ensure the clarity and reliability of HTML code, the technical correctness of the Web pages, and the reliability and technical correctness of the many hundreds of hyperlinks embedded within the Web pages.
There exists a problem, however, in that site navigation for documents (e.g., Web pages) is performed via hyperlinks that are embedded within the HTML structure documents. These embedded hyperlinks can be static or dynamic to some extent, in that the parameters they pass are different, but the base URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the same. Site navigation is therefore to some extent fixed. The nature of the hyperlinks leads users to “flow” from one page to another, following the interconnected hyperlinks from the original document (e.g., homepage) to the ultimate destination document. The embedded nature of the hyperlinks results in little or no control of the Web site author to change or alter the flow without having to rebuild Web pages, add new hyperlinks, or embed logic in a given Web page to control the flow.
Rebuilding Web pages is usually not a cost-effective option. To change the hyperlinks of a document, as with changes to the color, tabs, buttons, or the like, often requires completely rebuilding the page. With current Web site authoring tools there exists very tight constraints with regard to the code comprising the page. It is difficult to simply “cut and paste” changes into the page. Any new hyperlinks have to be verified to ensure they link to the correct Web pages. Changing hyperlinks introduces the possibility of “breaking” existing hyperlinks for other connected documents. Thus, it becomes expensive to implement changes to, for example, respond to competitors. It becomes expensive to quickly modify a user flow in response to changes in the products.
Thus, what is required is a way to simplify the process of maintaining a Web site. What is required is a solution that renders the update and maintenance process of a user flow of a Web site much easier than the prior art. What is required is a solution that simplifies the changing and maintaining of hyperlinks within Web pages of a Web site. The required solution should improve the speed and responsiveness of the resulting site to changing conditions, customers, and the like. The present invention provides a novel solution to these requirements.